Today I want to talk a little
about the general demographics of Finland. There are approximately five
and a half million people currently living in Finland. The majority of
the population lives in the southern part of the country, though there are
quite a few large cities in the north. Helsinki is the largest city and
also the capital of the country. There are nearly 600,000 people that
live in Helsinki. For Europe Helsinki is a very small capital city.
The official languages of Finland are Finish, which nearly 90% of the country
speaks, and Swedish, which just over 5% of the country speaks. You will find
the majority of the Swedish speakers on the west coast, because of the strong
Swedish influences found there. There is also quite a strong cultural
difference between Finnish speaking Finns and Swedish speaking Finns because of
this influence.
As a church representative I had
the opportunity to live on the west coast of Finland in the city of Jakobstad,
also known as Pietarsaari in Finnish. This city is Swedish speaking,
though most people there understand and speak Finnish. I had the
opportunity to learn some Swedish, though I am not fluent in it I could
understand a lot of what would be said in conversations. I always felt
more comfortable in Finnish so even in this city I would start conversations in
Finnish. It was funny when we would stop to speak with someone out on the
street when they would pretend that they didn't speak Finnish because they
didn't want to speak with us. Lucky enough for me I had a friend from Sweden
who was with me, and he would be able to stop and talk to them about the
restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
I got to live in and visit most of
the regions in Finland and I found that there are nice people and beautiful
cities all over the country. You will not be disappointed no matter where
you visit in Finland.
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